Water Pollution Control Authority - Regular Meeting

Okay, welcome everyone. It's uh May 13th at 7:34. I'm opening up the regular WPCA meeting. Uh we have Rob McCarthy, Lori Balak, and Demetri Tachulski uh here as members. Uh I believe Andrea is is Andrea on? I'm on. Uh can you hear me? Yes. Okay. Um, Andre is on. Um, is I don't know who else is on. Can't see him. I keep Dennis is on the phone. Dennis Muso. We have several me. We have looks like Francisco Oranga Buranga must be a member of the public. Public And then four more members of the public and Jim Lambos. Jim Lambos. Maybe this will pick. All right. All right. Um so first order. Uh so let's see. There's uh we're missing Randy Nixon said he's going to join late. Mary Dailyaly says she she would be absent. Um, let's see. Uh, Brad Jüks isn't here yet. Um, all right. So, I one, two, three, four, five.

Uh, John, I'm going to point you on to the board as a voting member tonight and I'm sorry, Brian. Brian, you bless you. I'm going to appoint you on the board. Also, Brian, what's your last name? Arnell. Uh first order of business is uh approval of the minutes from April 2025. Are there any comments or corrections? If you're online, please unmute yourself. All right. Not hearing any. Uh, all in favor of approving the minutes say I. I. I. You want a motion to approve? Oh, yeah. May I have a motion to approve the minutes? I can do that. Andrea. A second. John seconds. All in favor? I I Okay. Uh, motion passes unanimously. Um, budget update and expenses. I'll hand that over to Andrea. Okay. Um I don't know if you're projecting, but it's a you have a one-page summary report. Uh at the end, this is for April's 2025 accounting. So the current expenditures are $39,249.84, 84 giving us a remaining budget of

$48,622.16. So we have about 55% of the budget remaining. Uh expenses this month was $4,60 the last portion for the shared infrastructure purp uh purchase. And then we had um clerical and uh two of the past due bills that we were able to um get through and that was for postage and printing for the uh pumpout cards. And then uh the carryover status, we still have some legal in carryover uh 6,85650 and we're still looking at transferring some of the current year's attorney legal fees into this category since it has to be expensed. And then we have been talking about the ARPA funds. the American Rescue Funds. Our opening balance approved through the finance committee was 158,347 and to date we've processed four uh Fussen O'Neal invoices on the shared infrastructure. These invoices were in the amount of $4,55625, $2,643.75, $275, and 24250. So, our remaining balance is $150,629.50 50 cents and uh we have until the end of 2026 and December to use up these funds. The final uh note on my budget report

was just a note to myself. So you can please disregard that. Are there any questions? Oh, and I had a great meeting with Anita and Tracy, and I do want to uh compliment them for their willingness to meet and u to try to improve our processes and get invoices out. And I know Steve is trying really hard to get to the mailbox as often as possible. and we're all trying really hard to work together to process invoices the best we can. So, I know there's a lot of committees and I know that Tracy and Anita have a lot on their plate, but I think we are really making some forward process so we can get this committee or commission all the information that they want in a timely way. Any comments? Thank you. So, I uh Steve, I I do have to leave early tonight. Did you want me on for any voting? I know you have you have enough people on the or do you want me to try to wait until Did you say Brad was coming late? Uh no, Randy called and said he might be a little late. Uh maybe if you can you stay on another 10 minutes. Sure, I'll try. Sure, absolutely. Uh, as soon as Randy comes in, if it's okay, I'd like to um try to exit. Well, I'd like it I' I'd like to to make a motion at that. We might be there anyway, but I'm like to make a motion to uh move that item uh to the top if R when once Randy joins. I mean, he doesn't have to join right right now, but uh I'd like as many people here as possible. I got a question, Andrea. What's what's the shared services? There's a balance. What what's what's that?

The shared purchase services. Um okay. So that's where um we had to pay our portion to the beach associations for the shared infrastructure the buyin. Okay. Okay. Thank you it for asking that if you didn't know. Okay. All right. Thank you very much, Andrea. Absolutely. All right. Uh chairman's report. Um for these meetings to go better for I think everyone I'd like to to have a strict adherence to Robert's rules. Uh that would mean uh to talk only when recognized. Uh also means to have discussion um pertinent to what's being discussed so we don't go off tangent. Uh I have read up on uh conflicts of interest. Uh it's up to each individual to decide whether they have a conflict of interest or not. Um the chair doesn't decide that nor can they um not have them vote. So it's up to each person's personal opinion whether they have conflict of interest or not. Actually actually not. You're not recognized. You're not recognized. I thought you opened it up. You didn't vote on Robert. You're not You're not recognized. I don't even know who you are. I'm Bill Randazzo. And the thing Okay. Bill. Bill. Bill. You're Can you mute him, please? What? Thank you, Bill. You're not you're not a member of of of the of the uh

um of the commission. Um you're not recognized. Uh so as a guest, you can listen, but you can't interrupt the meeting. You've been muted because you've interrupted the meeting. Um so anyway uh I will adhere more to it and hopefully the meetings run a little better and uh we stay on topic. uh CSA update. Uh so the towns uh well the the each of the beach associations WPCAS as well as the town requested uh an extension of 120 and for us 150 days of their uh biders that that they want to award the contracts to uh to give time for Olam Shores and Miami Beach to bid the projects. My uh All I'm Shores has a resolution uh May 24th uh to up uh to to increase their spending authority. Um once that's done, uh they'll take a look at our CSA, which I thought because I didn't receive any comments from them since February that they didn't have any. But, uh, at our last meeting, it appears as though they've been putting their efforts into getting the resolution, uh, up and for vote. So, they they promised me comments by the end of June. Um, we should have a signed CSA, I I would hope, by by July, by the end of July at least. Um, there aren't many comments. This is just dragged on because I don't want to spend money

having our attorney update the CSA and then have it go back to someone that was uh that had comments but didn't provide them. So I want them all incorporated at once to have one review and then one signing. So, uh, the beach associations in I believe, uh, well, old colony and shared infrastructure. Um, there's there's three contracts in the shared infrastructure. Uh, three different low biders or three different biders under consideration plus Old Colony plus Old Lime. So, there's been five contracts that have been bid. Um, I believe as of now, we've heard back four of the five uh considered biders that said that they would be willing to keep their bids open uh for that length of time, but are concerned about uh inflation and uh whatnot. The deep has said that they would uh consider an inflationary escalation uh in the bids because we're really extending it because the deep wants the other two bids to come in before awarding the whole project. Uh our sewer project status is that uh uh our low bidder has has uh indicated that with an inflationary clause they would be willing to hold open their bid. Um that is about it on my chairman's report. Um I have I have an

old thought I sell one out. Um I wanted on the old business I wanted to discuss uh the accounting matrix. Uh things things have been going uh better with with our finance department and us. But I think that we should take a look at that a little more closely to determine if uh we're going to follow this throughout our uh throughout the the uh sewer project. Um those those requisitions are are treated differently. They go from uh they go from from the contractor they're reviewed by the the engineering firm which uh right now our engineering firm is Wood and Curran. Uh after Wood and Curran reviews them and gives us their re they forward the recommendation to the WPCA. the WPCA will vote to either approve or disapprove or send it back. Um n I would say 95% of the time it's just approved at that point. Uh and then um and then uh uh after that uh we would request clean water funding. The paperwork would be filed uh go up to Lee Rogers at Deep. They would approve it. they would they would put money in our account and then we would pay the contractor and then the cycle starts all over again. Um we'll have to streamline it to ensure that we pay our contractors

on time. I think Andre has done a great job getting us there. Uh so um we'll just continue along that path and see what happens. Uh surprised I didn't I don't know why that didn't uh uh so I don't have the I don't have my car I don't know what I did with it. Uh oh I know where it is. is is the revision is the revised referendum summary under old business also. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, the next one is the next one that's important is the revised uh referendum. Right after our meeting last right after our meeting last uh week, I got an email from our bond attorney who indicated they had talked to uh the people at deep and they believe that while we don't have anything to do with the note that Colony signed for the shared infrastructure, they believe that we should uh increase our referendum to include 29.7% of the total cost of the shared infrastructure. So it it doesn't affect the bottom line as far as how much we anticipate the loan to be. It's just uh the spending authority has to increase to include

29.7% of the total shared infrastructure costs of 22,271,567.65. um 29.7% of that is 11,135,783,83 and um the total infrastructure amount is uh 10,549,550 for a total cost of uh oh you know what I didn't do I didn't add this correctly 11 million it would be 11135783 and the total intro Hi Randy. Sorry I'm late. It's okay. Thank you. Uh in the total internal infrastructure of 10,449,550. So I have a math error here. Um, so be 2.7 million instead of 5.2. No, the the math the math error is in is in the shared infrastructure. It's supposed to be 29.7% of 22 million. Yeah. Which says in 11 mil, right?

All right. That should be seven. I got um let's see this E 20. Oh, times I know what I did. Okay. All right. So it's it would be a total of 6,614,655 plus our internal infrastructure of 10,449,550 um for an in for a total cost of basically 17 million. Um, we've already approved 9 and a half million and so we're looking for a total referendum amount of uh hold on total amount of 17,64,2559. 9 cents. The half of that is still um K 26 26. Half of that is still the same amount that we anticipated uh last month with a loan value of8 million532,12.80. So all

all we're doing is taking we're leaving we're taking the percentage out at the end instead of taking it out uh while before we're we're taking out our percentages at the end in lie of taking the percentage after the loan value is determined by old colony. Um, while I understand that we for spending authority the town would have to the town would have to uh definitely request all that we're going to spend on our project. I don't quite understand the logic of of we're not going to spend anything on we're going to get a we're going to get a bill at the end of of the job that old colon is going to do after their loan is already set for that amount. That's why it was 4 and a.5 million increase last last uh week or last month. But regardless, the the loan value, the expected loan hasn't changed. It's still the same amount. Um, what I would like is is a uh is a motion. Um, and I'll round that number up to 17,100. Uh, we were approved for 19 uh 9.5 million. I would like a motion to increase the B the referendum amount by uh $8.6 6 million which would give us a spending authority of $17,100,000. You said 8.6 million increase.

Yes. Yes. 8 8.6 million increase. Oh, and I I guess we should we should resend last month's uh approval of four and a half. I guess you could amend it to say that we just need to add to it. I don't Can we do that? No. Whatever you need. Who Who said no? Dennis. Dennis. From what I understand, it has to be it can't be added to it. Has to be a a firm number. We already know there's 9.7, but it has to be a firm number. 7 plus 8.6. It's got to be 8.6. Okay. Can I have a motion? Where does it say that? Where does it say what? What dentist? Where is that coming from? Selectman's office. Selectman's office. One number. Um, all right. So, at the last at the last meeting, Martha said that we we could we would add to the existing referendum amount. The existing referendum amount right now is $9.5 million. So, an additional 8.6 would get us to the 17.1. I'll make a motion. Thank you. Is there a second? I'll second it. Thank you. Is there discussion? To be clear, is he seated? Uh, did I recognize Randy when he came

in? Thought I did. Yeah, he did. I bet he got here at 7.7. Procedural problem. Neither do I. So, is there any discussion of this? I mean, I I know the numbers. Thank you. The the numbers jump out at you. It's a huge increase. Uh but also the state's paying another 25%. Uh, you know, from my calculations, we're going to borrow around $8.5 million over 20 years. Uh, the payments come out the same or basically the same. An edu is going to cost $1,932.58 per .edu per year with that money funded at 2% per year. That makes sense. Um yeah, I I think that we talked about last time is that it's the referendum's gone up, but Deep is giving us money, so it's net net zero sum. So that's a positive. I mean, it's we just have to explain that really well when we go to referendum. Yeah, I I think that we should put a flyer out that explains the spending authority. Number one, uh, the funds are CWF funding. The town doesn't have to bond this money. Um, it's CWF funding. Number two, the way I describe CWF funding, I I guess they want the spending authority to be as high as it is because if CWF funding doesn't come through, the town has to pay for it. The only thing I can say is that no one has this money except for CWF. So after the requisition isn't paid, I would imagine that work is

going to stop because Old Colony doesn't have $40 million uh banked to pay that. So the the I mean the state would have to default on their money to I mean we're entering a contract that they're going to pay this amount. So, it's not I it's basically if the state defaults on the money, we're we're we've incurred that expense, but as I said, we get paid um on a monthly basis from them. So, we even that the amount of money that we would be on the hook for would would certainly be be uh uh limited to one month's requisition, maybe two, depending on how how close they are. Um if we have a per one year $1932.58 that means per 20 years $ 38,65160. Okay. This is before before interest paid, correct? No, that's after interest. Oh, it's after you see yearly payment to deep at 2% per year. All right. It's interest included. All right. Oh, sorry. Yeah. Mark it out. Thank you. Actually, the bottom still correct. So, is the motion resending? Are we putting away that? So, uh, I think we should I think we I think we should also have a motion to resend or amend the motion to resend last month's uh 4.5 million.

I'll make a motion that we um a amend the uh approved um amount for the uh referendum. So in essence, we're rescending our vote from last month so we can amend it this month. So, are you saying that you're making a motion to amend the the motion on the table to resend last month's Yeah, you just asked for million. Okay. Can I Yes, correct. Second on that. Second. Rob McCarthy seconds. We vote on it or discussion. Well, there's discussion. So basically uh this motion states that uh we're rescending the 4 and a.5 million approved last month and replacing it with seven uh with 8.6 million uh this month due total that's total increase total increase uh to to comply with uh council. Are there any other discussions? this Dennis, what does it do for Now we've we've raised the uh dollar amount to $17 million. Uh what does it do for affordability? Uh nothing because the bottom line stays the same as before. It's 8.5 million that we expect to borrow. That's why that's why the deep is pitching in 50%. It comes in after after the uh after the loan value is is

it's affordability is based on the loan value not not the total spend spending hate to say it is our math right is it 8.6 or 7.6 the increase he's saying 8 8.6 9 and a2 9 and a half plus 8.6 17 what I can't see the math was checking 18.1 Thank you. Yeah. No, you got give me the I just the numbers are what the two numbers it's 9.5 should be 7.6. 9.5 was the previously approved referendum. We need to get up to 1700. It should be 7.6 million. That's correct. Thank you, Rob. So, do you want to make the motion? We need to revise the motion again. Yeah. Yeah. Let's get the motion right. Who's got whoever has the numbers in front of them? It's It's 7 7.6 million. So, I guess I'll make that motion that the amount should be 7.6 million is the amount to increase from the prior referendum. Right. Seconded. I second it. Thank you, Randy. So, now we've already saved a million dollars in two minutes. Actually, Rob has saved the project. the project is going through. Um, so yeah, it it doesn't again the bottom line the the the expected anticipated loan is is the same as it was. Uh, it's it's how you just work the percentages.

You're taking the percentage, you're taking 50% at the end instead of 50% or you're taking 29.7% of 50% at the end instead of uh in the middle of of the construction project. Um none of the other below line calculations change. So it's still affordable. um to answer your question. Are there any other discussions questions? All right, I'll call the vote. Uh all in favor of raising the referendum uh to increase the current referendum value of 9.5 million by 7.6 million to equal 17.1 million total spending authority. Uh please uh say I I I guess say nay. That would be Dennis, I think. Yep. Okay. Any abstensions? All right. No abstensions. The motion carries. Thank you. Okay. Um, is it is this a good time for me to excuse myself? Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you for staying on. Thank you. Absolutely. All right. Have a good meeting. Yep. Okay. Bye. Uh, I have no new business on the agenda for tonight. Uh, correspondence. I do have correspondence. Uh, I have a correspondence from the Sound View. Well, it was I have this I have

correspondence that was written to DEP uh from the sound view. Well, actually it was written to uh the governor of Connecticut. It was also CC to deep uh the first select woman and attorney general uh of Connecticut, Honorable William Tong. It's from the Sound View Sewer Coalition LLC. And uh basically the letter states that uh they don't believe um they don't believe the the project has has been managed correctly, has been is financially viable. uh they believe that it's unprecedented for the town to sherk its financial responsibilities to sound residents by placing the cost of the shared infrastructure for this unwanted project directly on our residents. Um they talk about um uh BW paving uh the O line of WPCA is considering awarding the contract to BW paving since is the lowest bidder. Uh however in light of BW paving's recent conviction by attorney general Tom for bid rigging. Uh we the S view co can question that. Um well you I guess I mean BW is a certified is a is a is a company that was able to get a bid bond. They're not they're not prevented from bidding work in the state and they were the low bidder. So I don't know why we wouldn't look at them. turns out uh it doesn't look like uh they want to do the

project after all and they withdrew their bid. Um so they'll lose their bid bond. But I mean that's that's why you go through that's why you go through bid qualifications after the bid to ensure that the biders are capable of doing the project. There's a whole bunch of stuff here. It was signed by Dennis Moon and Frank Papalardo. Uh, I have I have uh another correspondence from Mary Dailyaly, but it was an email to the chair and I don't believe that that is a uh that is a um one that that is I mean it's It's it's not correspondence like this. It's more about the WPCA itself. Um, so I don't have anything else. I know that uh Dennis had asked to to say some stuff. Uh, I did he wanted to read a letter. I asked him to send it to me and I would cover it under correspondence, but I did not receive one. So I don't know, Dennis, if you sent one or not, but I didn't receive anything. Um, I've checked the mailbox. I did not send you. Okay. All right. Uh, that's it for correspondence. Uh, public comment. Is there any public comment? Uh, Erica, could you please uh unmute Bill Palazo or everyone should be unmuted. Okay, everyone should be unmuted. So if you have public comment, please please uh

identify your name, address, and give your public comment, please. Do you guys hear me now? I can hear you. Okay. A couple things. One is state your name and please state your name and address, please. My name is William Randazzo. I live in Weathersfield now, but I own property on Harford Avenue. Thank you. Okay. Well, the the first thing is is I wanted to bring up is when I was trying to talk earlier, you mentioned about Robert rules and a conflict. You you're actually wrong because if you if you read through Robert's rules and there's a potential conflict with an individual, it should be brought to the board for a vote if that person's eligible to participate in that conversation. That just a comment. Second thing is is I did send a letter to you guys, the bo whole board itself, uh probably three weeks ago asking you about edus on my property that I have on 52 and 56 Harford Avenue is if I'm going to invest there, I want to know exactly what edus you guys are actually trying to would would hit me with. and I never got any response back. And I I was hoping to get an answer before the meeting because I didn't want to bring it up in a meeting. And the reason I did that is because twofold. One, on my side, expense-wise, what it's going to cost me to put my my development in. The second thing is is if I decide to just back out of it all together, those other .eduus got to get divided up between the rest of the property owners. Am I correct? Bill, this is just public

comment. I I'm not going to I'm not I'm not I'm not going to do a question and answer anymore. That was part of my um You can make your comments and I I I if you ask questions, I can get back to you. I can state I never received I I've never received any correspondence from you. Okay, let me ask you a comment then. Why didn't you respond to my email? Right. I just said I've never received any correspondence from you. Well, it's amazing. It went through. Where did you send it? When did I send it? Yes. Where did you send it? I I I sent it off your website uh probably three or four weeks ago, right after the last meeting that you guys had. sent it out and always looking for some communication to understand you know as as people who live there and investors who are down there would like to know information if we can't get that you know through you know personal communication then I have to bring it up through a public forum well I I'm you know I I'm not I'm not uh I'm not lying to you if you think that's the problem here. My my email my email is is the email address being responded to or being answered or being looked at? All right. So, Bill, my email address is chair c h a iir

wpca at that's exactly sent. Look, stop the nonsense. I sent it to to you guys directly. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for your comment. You want to block me again? I think it Do you have anything other comments to say? No, I'm actually looking for a replacement from you. What have you got? Each edu is each each edu would be charged at$,900 32 $32.58 per year. Okay. Thank Thank you for for that. That's uh really short and pointless because if you look at what I sent you, I sent you a copy of my whole plan and everything else and it was a little more complex and complicated than just saying that. But thank you. You're welcome. There anyone else want public comment? Not hearing any. Uh, may I have a motion for meeting to adjurnn? I'll make a motion to I'll second it. All right. Meeting's adjourned.